What materials are used for the piercing?

Gold

From ancient times gold was considered as one of the nicest metals because of its yellow-reddish color. High-quality adornments for piercing are made only of 14 and 18 karats gold. Stable structure and fusibility allow to make gold jewelry of the utmost different shapes. 18kt gold is rarely used for relatively big piercing adornments (rods, “bananas”, etc.), because after the long time of active use the item can lose its initial shape: the greater is hallmark, the softer material is.

Allergic reactions to gold occur in people with high sensitivity to metals, which are used in low-quality 9kt adornments. Manufacturing of such adornments is highly common in Asian countries with the use of high-quality gold deposition, which after the short time wears-off, showing its real “quality”. Such items contain just 37.5% of gold and 62.5% of an additives (copper, nickel, etc.), and wearing of such adornments could cause permanent allergic reaction to gold-containing items.

Surgical Steel

Steel alloys, used for the surgical purposes, have the history of more than 300 years. First record is dated by the year 1666, when Phabricius, medical surgeon, first used steel rings to fix a fracture. Now there is surgical steel of 4 Grades, based on quantitative content of one or the other additive materials.
200-th Grade contains chromium, nickel and magnesium alloys
300-th Grade contains only chromium and nickel alloys
400-th Grade contains only chromium alloys
500-th Grade consists of low-content chromium alloys

Less corrosion-prone is 300-th Grade Surgical Steel, and that’s why it is so widely used in manufacturing of surgical instruments, as well as the adornments for piercing - material of 300-th Grade does not emit the alloy components and is not toxic, unlike the Grade 303. Wearing the adornments made of low-quality Surgical Steel (303) fraught with severe emission of alloy components entering the bloodstream via skin, which may result in pigmentation of the body areas, not to mention stable or permanent allergies.

All high-grade items undergo electrical polishing at manufacturing. This operation allows final removal of all surface irregularities.

PTE-PTFE (Poly-Tethra-Fluorine-Ethylamine)

Poly-Tethra-Fluorine-Ethylamine is widely used by surgeons around the world for the operations of implantation. Uniqueness of this material is in its flexibility but elasticity and total resistance against the corrosion. Recommended for navel piercing in pregnant women and people actively engaged in sports. Healing time for the first-time piercing, when PTFE was used, is significantly shorter than with Titanium or Niobium, owing to its hypoallergenic properties.

Ivory

Ivory as a material is originated from Northern permanent-frost zone – vast broad desert, in the middle of which runs Arctic Circle. According to the estimation of specialists, there are over 500000 tones of mammoth ivory tusks buried along the arctic coast and in the coastal belt zone of 1000 km in length. This means, that back in times this arctic wilderness had to be inhabited simultaneously by five million of mammoths. Every year about 5 tones of mammoth ivory is mined. Modifications of the filled with thawed snow river beds washed out massive tusks out of glacial mausoleums, in which they were ice-bound millions years ago, when mammoths had “paved” their paths through this land from the time of first glacial age. Glacial stratums of over 1,5 km in thickness had preserved immense prehistoric mystery. The estimated age of the tusks is 40000 to 1000000 years. Since mammoths are classified as belonged to extinct family, the Ivory remnants can be sold freely around the world, what is confirmed by Washington Wild Species Protection Bureau. Given to the fact that mammoth Ivory is supplied freely, this should discourage from the illegal Ivory trade and is expected to have to facilitate the discontinuation of the illegal black market trade.

Well, but for folks who wish to make an exclusive piercing Ivory is very suitable option.

Fluro (Poly-methyl meta-acrylate)

More and more of new generation polymers are implemented in medical practice, and the compatibility of these materials with the organism is already recognized everywhere. Possibilities for the usage of polymers as implanting materials compatible with internal bodily tissues were taking into consideration by various researchers back in 30-th and early 40-th, especially at cranial trauma surgeries in 1941. Polymeric implants have surprising chemical stability, even when inserted inside the body, even though there were few cases of allergic reaction to acrylic used as dental implantation material. According to research data, human body is exceptionally tolerant towards the acrylic. Acrylic adornments are to be cleaned regularly. In much rare cases of oversensitivity, jewelry is to be removed and replaced.

Fluro body jewelry is made of Poly-methyl meta-acrylate (РММА). РММА was one of the first plastic materials developed over 20-th and 30-th years of XX century, and had been successfully used as a substitution for glass in automotive and aviation industry. РММА did not prove itself as a material for contact lenses, but in cranial-reconstructive and plastic surgery and in various other areas of practical recovery medicine they are not about to refuse from РММА.

Titanium

Titanium is a wonder material of technological age possessing multiple outstanding properties. It is applied in many industrial spheres - such as in the military transport vehicles armouring, submarine vessels construction, in computer chips, architecture structures, radioactive materials storage vessels, medical devices, electric cardio-valve stimulators, and many others. Titanium with nickel has distinctive ability to “remember” its initial shape and can regain it even when being mechanically modified to great extent. The energy per one tone of Titanium produced from ore, versus one tone of steel, exceeds the later in 16 times, what is reflected in its market cost. Today Titanium plays key role on the piercing jewelry market, too.

Owing to its three primary parameters, Titanium more and more supersedes stainless alloy-steel from piercing industry as more suitable metal. It is two times lighter than steel, allows to have wide-spectrum surface colors, and it does not contain nickel. Nickel-contained piercing jewelry for initial use is prohibited in all countries. But not all grades of Titanium are suitable for body piercing adornments.

Material surface characteristics are always of exceptional importance in terms of its internal use. Rough surfaced Titanium is used for the dental reconstruction works, because it can conjunct with the bones without being coated. Non-polished Titanium is not allowed for the piercing because non-polished, filthy polished or with roughly treated surface it can cause severe problems when inserted in bodily tissues. According to data, prepared for the International Symposium on Biological Materials, Titanium was included in five best materials for the piercing.

Black Titanium

Since its practical introduction to the medical industry in second half of 80th, the PVD method (physical vapor deposition) was adopted widely. By the means of it the thin, wear-proof coating is deposited on such products as medical devices, apparatuses, implants (included cardio-stimulators) surgical tools and orthopedic implants. During the PVD process, selected coating material is deposited on contact surface creating very durable film.

The basic advantage of PVD technology is to modify surface characteristic of the object and not affecting the characteristics or functionality of underlying material.

Biocompatibility of the coating is the reason it is used for the surgery purposes. Possibility for Black Titanium use in body-piercing was discussed with numerous specializing Technical Institutions. All of them, with no exception, have rated Black Titanium piercing jewelry as safe and reliable procedure.

Susceptibility tests on millions of participants over 10-year period have shown no one case of incompatibility. Complete line of Black Titanium body adornments are coated by plasma-spray PVD technology.

So, it has to be kept in mind that Black Titanium body jewelry are suitable for long-time wearing, do not cause abrasions, keep their color and are chemically safe. Moreover, Black Titanium has an extra-low wear coefficient.